Lady Trappers Win Opener Against LCCC

The Northwest College women’s basketball team officially began their season in Cheyenne last week, facing Laramie County Community College and leaving with a 72-63 win. The team traveled to Rock Springs that evening to play in the Western Wyoming Community College Classic against Snow College and Eastern Wyoming College. The Lady Trappers came up on the losing end of both games, 76-61 and 91-80, respectively.

Lady Trappers’ head coach Janis Beal said that in these early season games, she wants her team to focus “more [on] what we do and how we do things and improve on those things instead of focusing as much on the opposing team — focus more on us.”

For the weekend overall, Beal said there were some “first game jitters,” which she said could be why the team had so many turnovers over the weekend.

“This weekend as a whole we had to have some freshmen step up,” said Beal, adding, “When we get to January/February, the experience we’ve gained this weekend will hopefully be good for us.”

LADY TRAPPERS 72, LCCC 63 “Thought it was a good start for us,” said Beal of the win. “I felt like that game, we were in control the whole game — like dictated how the game went — so [I] thought the girls did a good job with that.”

The Lady Trappers had 32 turnovers but they also forced 30; Beal said that ratio was OK, but she still wants the team to work on not turning the ball over as much.

For steals, the Lady Trappers had 11 as a team across nine players; Dallas Petties and Kira Marlow led with two each.

Sophomore Dani McManamen was the team’s lead scorer with 14 points — 10 of which came from the free throw line. The sophomore also had six rebounds: two on offense and four on defense.

Tala Aumau-Tuisavura and Marlow tied for the most boards with seven apiece.

Kaylee Brown led in assists with two.

“It was definitely good to get a win right off the bat. Laramie County is a solid team; they have some kids that can play,” Beal said.

NWC will play LCCC again at home on Nov. 21.

SNOW COLLEGE 77, LADY TRAPPERS 61The Lady Trappers had a quick turnaround after playing LCCC on Thursday night, traveling to Rock Springs to face off against Snow College at 11 a.m. Friday.

“It’s good for us, it’s a good test,” Beal said of the turnaround. As for the game, “we struggled with a press they put on us, some pressure.”

Snow College scored a total of 29 points on the turnovers resulting from the press.

“I take that,” Beal said of the team not being prepared for the press. “Early in the year, you can’t really do a lot of scouting reports because you don’t know what they are going to do, cause they haven’t played any games, either.”

As the game went on, “we got better, once we learned that those turnovers created through their press was creating some easy opportunities for them,” Beal said.

At halftime, the score was 39-31 Snow College and they went on to win 77-61. Throughout the game, the largest lead was 54-35, Snow College.

McManamen tied for the lead in points with 12, alongside Petties. McManamen also led in rebounds with eight, split evenly between offensive and defensive boards.

“She did a great job attacking the basket and getting to the free throw line,” Beal said of McManamen.

McManamen went to the free throw line seven times and made four.

Beal said the game showed that the team needs to also work on defensive boards; 10 of the points scored by Snow College were a result of second chance points.

EASTERN WYOMING 91, LADY TRAPPERS 80 “I was very pleased with how the girls came out against Eastern,” said Beal. “The girls played extremely well the first quarter.”

The Lady Trappers were up 31-19 after the first.

At halftime, however, the score was 49-39 Eastern.

“We have to do a better job of when things don’t go our way of changing the momentum,” Beal said of the second quarter.

In the second half, Eastern outscored NWC by one point, 42-41, but the lead acquired in the second period resulted in the 91-80 win for Eastern.

Beal pointed out that the Lady Trappers had nine straight offensive possessions where they scored with no points.

“We can’t have that many possessions in a row where we don’t score,” Beal said.

Julynne Silva led the team in scoring with 15 points, followed by Petties and Aumua-Tuisavura with 11 points each.

McManamen led in rebounds with seven, six on defense and one on offense.

“We got to make sure we put a complete game together,” Beal said of one of lessons learned in the loss.

This weekend, the Lady Trappers will be at home for the First Bank of Wyoming Shootout. Beal said she’s excited.

“After the long road trip, it’ll be good to be at home,” the coach said.

The first game will be against Williston State College at 5:30 p.m. Friday.

Beal said that historically, Williston has been a good team. But she pointed out that with junior colleges, it is hard to scout a team early in the season because there is so much turnover in the rosters.

“It’s more about what we do and doing what we do well instead of focusing on the other team, ‘cause there hasn’t been enough games to really be able to tell what they do well,” Beal said.

The second game will be a rematch against Eastern Wyoming College at 11 a.m. Saturday.

“Saturday we get the opportunity to make corrections from the first time we played, and so that’ll be good for us in preparations of region play because you play teams twice,” Beal said.